


Inktober Collection 2018

by Talis_Ragnell



Category: When The Night Comes (Visual Novel)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Gender-Neutral Pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:09:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talis_Ragnell/pseuds/Talis_Ragnell
Summary: A collection of Inktober drabbles for the When the Night Comes visual novel. They'll also be posted on myTumblr.As of Chapter 4, the rating is now Explicit. Any explicit chapters will be marked in the chapter title and in the notes at the top of the chapter, so they should be easy to skip.Pairings, tags, and rating are subject to change as Inktober goes on. Each chapter will have its own rating in the notes at the top of the page, but the entire collection will be rated by whatever the most mature drabble happens to be.Once the first chapter drops, I'll start taking fic requests. SFW and NSFW. Feel free to drop by and shoot me an ask anytime!





	1. Lunar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: None

The moon was high in the sky that night, its light piercing through the fog that lingered around the outskirts of the city, reaching into the deep forest beyond. The soft glow of the moon off the shifting, silvery mist was hypnotizing. It tricked the eyes, distorting shadows and reflecting light into the most beautiful sort of spiraling dance.

The trees of the forest stood silently, dark shapes in the shifting fog. They reached up out of the mist and up towards the stars. In the day, they looked like the normal trees that guarded any forest.

But at night…

Well, they looked haunting. More like the guardians of whatever manner of beasts happened to be prowling within, and certainly nothing like anything a child would like to play under.

However, beneath the dark, imposing trees and within the silvery but equally imposing mist, the hunter felt perfectly at home. They’d always loved the peace of the night more than the loud chorus of the day. It was dark, but the moon and stars were there to light the way, and their vision was sharper in the dark than the average person’s anyway. And while the darkness would hide any creatures stalking the forest, it would also hide them.

And they were the only hunter in this forest to truly be feared.

The hunter lifted their head, closing their eyes as they enjoyed the cool breeze on their skin. The night was young and full of promise, and they had the feeling that the peace would only last so long.

And then, a mournful howl shattered the peace.

The hunter’s eyes snapped open and a smirk slid across their face, as surely and confidently as their knife slid from its sheath.

Both held the same hardness, the same feral joy, and both shone in the light of the moon.

It was time to hunt.

 


	2. Wounded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Non-Graphic Injuries

Blood dripped from the hunter’s fingers, wetly pattering onto the freshly fallen snow. It stained the snow behind them, red on white in the darkness of the cold night.

  
The hunter’s breath was ragged, the white puffs of air that left their lips uneven and labored. The footprints they left in the soft powder slowly became deeper, their feet heavy as they tried to force themselves on.

  
The town wasn’t that far off. They could see the faint twinkling of the lights in the distance, the safety and warmth promised by the flames…

  
They staggered in the snow, barely keeping their feet by placing their hand on an old oak. They’d hunted enough creatures and spent enough time in the woods to know that once an injured beast fell into the snow from exhaustion, it didn’t usually get back up.

  
The hunter managed to push off the tree after catching their breath as best they could, continuing to drag themselves towards the town. Even if they collapsed right outside, the town guards would take them to the closest healer.

  
But they had to get there first.

  
Their vision started to blur as they pushed on, putting all of their effort into moving forward. That’s all they had to do. They had less than a quarter mile to the gates, and then they’d be safe and could give into the darkness.

  
But not yet.

  
Just one foot in front of the other, they reminded themselves. They’d been walking since they were a year old. How hard could it really be to walk just a little bit more?  
Their vision blurred more harshly as they misstepped, pain tearing through their body as their wound was jarred.

  
With a muffled cry they slipped and fell, hands scrabbling but not finding purchase. Not this time.

  
They crumbled into the snow, their injured body unable to support its own weight on their arms. The powder enveloped them in its icy embrace, sapping the strength from their limbs.

  
Blackness clouded the edges of their vision, and the last thing they saw before darkness took them was a pair of vaguely familiar boots moving towards them through the snow.


	3. Silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: None

Silver, the most important color in a hunter’s life. 

Silver, the color of the weapons they used to hunt. The deadly arms that were merely an extension of their bodies. Their will, realized. Beautiful tools of both protection and destruction, coming in all shapes, sizes, and varieties. Blades, maces, axes, hammers, spears, crossbows… All achingly beautiful, all breathtakingly deadly. The gleam of a hunter’s weapon was the last thing many rogue creatures had ever seen. 

Silver, the moon and the mist. Two old friends all hunter trainees were taught to both respect and utilize. Even with their enhanced night vision, the light of the moon revealed their path. The mist, hiding them when they needed it most, protecting them in their times of need just as it would protect their prey. It was a fickle friend, but even a fickle friend could save your life.

Silver, the mirror’s surface. Used for signaling, for fighting things that couldn’t be looked at directly, for sometimes seeing things as they truly were… Novices didn’t consider them necessary on all hunts, but true hunters swore by their presence. 

As did this hunter.

Then, there was the silver that all hunters knew the best. The silver that marked their bodies and marred their minds.

Not all the scars of hunting were physical, but all of them left the hunter marked. Changed.

Some never came back whole, their minds too deeply scarred to ever go back to hunting. The worst was when it was someone they knew, someone they couldn’t save…

Hunters didn’t often make it to retirement.

But those that did, more than the weapon and the mirror, more than the moon and the mist, shone bright silver.


	4. Vampire (Explicit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: Explicit  
> Warnings: None

The first moment their eyes met his, they knew what he was. It was obvious in the paleness of his skin, the points of his ears, and the unearthly grace of his every move.

Not to mention the hunger in his beautiful, piercing, _inescapable_ eyes.

But that hardly stopped them from accepting the drinks he’d bought, hardly kept them from flirting back.

And they weren’t sure anything would have been able to halt whatever it was that drew them to him, whatever force of nature kept them so willfully ensnared as they followed him into the alley behind the tavern.

In mere moments, his lips met theirs with a fierceness they relished as they were pinned against the wall. The kiss was all hunger and teeth and need and heat. However, underneath it all, there was an underlying gentleness. A comfort underneath the ferocity. This vampire had no intention of breaking them.

At least not in any ways they wouldn’t enjoy.

When they broke apart, it was only so he could turn them and push their chest to the wall with his strong, cool hands. One hand reached down and undid their trousers, dropping them to the ground, while the other kept them in place with a firm grip on their hip.

He asked them if they were sure. They gave their answer.

He offered them a roguish smirk, then slid into where the hunter burned for him.

And, as it turned out, he fucked as fiercely as he kissed. Both hands moved to their hips to keep them still, the hunter loving the counterpoint of his cold to the heat rising inside them.

They groaned and tried to find purchase on the wall with their hands, his merciless thrusts leaving them approaching the edge much faster than they would have liked.

Broken curses escaped their lips as his angle changed and he lit them on fire in a way that was just  _right_. The powerful snapping of the vampire’s hips grew a tad more frantic as the hunter’s cursing broke off, the new angle leaving them barely enough consciousness to do anything more than just feel.

They grew increasingly more desperate, trying to push back against him but stopped by the completely unfair grip on their hips.

They were so, so…

So…

_Close._

And then they were there, toppling over the edge with a choked gasp.

The vampire quickly followed and the hunter was proud of their ability to keep themselves upright. It had been a long time since they’d been able to lose themselves so fully to another.

“Damn,” they breathed out, fighting to catch their breath. “What’s your name?”  
The vampire leaned in, whispering his name to them like a secret.

The hunter repeated it like a prayer.

“ _Finnegan_ …”


	5. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Mentions of past child and spousal abuse  
> Notes: Blythe belongs to my friend Midnight over on [her blog](https://midnightsramblings.tumblr.com/).

Family.

Zeke had lost his family to plague when he was merely a child, not quite ten years of age. His new step-parent, his mother, and his little sister succumbed to it weeks after it struck the city. It had taken them, all pure of heart and kind, gentle souls.

But it had spared him.

It had spared the spawn of his father. The murderer who tainted everything he touched, staining it red with the blood on his hands. The monster who was willing to raise a hand to his wife and his child.

And so, Zeke had convinced himself that what he needed was allies. Friends and family were a luxury he couldn’t afford. He couldn’t bear to lose anymore.

But he was young, his heart hardened with anger and sadness and near to breaking.

And he hadn’t yet met Blythe.

They’d been naught but a scrawny, scrappy little waif when he met them. Full of fire and sharp of tongue but weighing as much as a feather.

At first, they’d been archenemies of the worst sort. They’d despised one another from the moment they ran into each other on move-in day at the academy, both too proud to admit their joint mistake.

But then they’d found a greater enemy in their class. A horrible bully that was in need of a lesson, far past due.

It hadn’t taken them long to realize how well they worked together. They were the fire to his shadow, the light to his dark, the poison on his blade.

The rest?

Well, that was history.

And so if anyone asked Zeke about his family now, there would be only one response he’d give. The one person he’d laughed and sobbed and bled for. The only person who’d ever stayed with him, and the one person he’d never allow any harm to come to.

One name.

The only one that mattered.

_Blythe._


	6. Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Warnings: None  
> Notes: Blythe belongs to my friend Midnight over on [her blog](https://midnightsramblings.tumblr.com/).

Zeke never got any letters while he was in the academy.

All the other students noticed, but all of them were smart enough not to ask. Zeke had made it clear early what happened whenever someone crossed him. Mostly through rumors about himself that he’d started, a few well executed pranks, and his usual dramatic flair.

But, you know.

Whatever worked.

When they were old enough that internal love letters between students became common, Zeke never received any of those either. Everyone was too invested in the goods he smuggled in to risk dating him. Or, more accurately, to risk breaking up with him and having their access to smuggled goods torn from them.

And it wasn’t that he even smuggled in anything bad. Not truly. And all he wanted in return was favors or secrets of equal value.

The contraband was mostly books the academy had banned, snacks they weren’t allowed to have on their strict hunter diets, romance novels with questionable topics and illustrations, and occasionally a bit of alcohol for the older students.

Students under sixteen were intolerable enough without him giving them access to booze.

Sometime after he and Blythe had graduated, they were separated for a few months.

Zeke’s life darkened considerably without his friend, old night terrors making themselves known. Ones Blythe would have chased away with their sleeping potions or even just a kind word.

The first few weeks of that time, it seemed he was the only one sending letters. All of them detailing his hunts and his exploits and the trouble he managed to make for himself wherever he went.

But then, stacks of letters came pouring in. All of them written in Blythe’s scrawling hand, the shape of each letter achingly familiar.

He kept them, all of them. He saved them for the nights he couldn’t sleep, hoping they’d chase the nightmares away.

And so they did. Until he and Blythe had met again.

And traded sharp words with sharper looks and wicked smiles.

But such was the nature of their relationship.

Zeke wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
